The clattering of Danzo's cane against the floor echoed through the silence of the room. A company of ROOT operatives kneeled before their supreme leader, at the head of which was his most recent and most fruitful project to date, the Nanabi jinchuriki. The sight of a minty curtain bowing to him with complete and utter deference nearly brought a smile to his wisened face. Shisui's eye may have helped kick things off, but the fact that he was successful in molding her into a sharpened weapon so quickly was truly astounding. She had surprised him with just how competent of a fighter she was when she had initially arrived, but the real surprise came in her rapid growth. She was a sponge in its purest form, soaking up everything she was taught with a vigor reminiscent of Orochimaru in his adolescence.

Not only that, but she could also harness her biju's chakra as if it was second nature, easily slipping into more powerful states while maintaining her faculties. It was curious, as he figured that a larger number of tails would make the chakra that much more volatile, but a nugget of information from Lady Mito Uzumaki decades prior reminded him that the temperament of the beast often made all the difference. In any event, that powerful boon bolstered her already enormous potential. Truly, her talents were being wasted in a shithole like Takigakure even divorced from her being a jinchuriki.

Her rate of growth was frankly prodigious, but he hesitated to refer to her as such. Terms like "genius" and "once-in-a-generation prodigy" were thrown around so willy nilly these days to describe overconfident whelps who were not even able to send a passing glance at the ground monsters like his two sensei walked on, nor were they anything in comparison to true standout shinobi like the White Fang, the Sannin, the Yondaime, or even that foolish monkey rotting in a grave like the bozo he was-

He mentally jerked out of that devolving string. This was no time to waste brain power on his ignorant rival. He was dead, and Danzo wasn't. All was right in the world…

…Except for the fact that he was not yet ruling over Konoha. That would soon be rectified, however. It was why this meeting was happening.

"Fu," he addressed, and he quickly identified, "Jinchuriki," when both she and Fu Yamanaka raised their gazes.

"Yes, Lord Danzo?" Fu dutifully responded.

"Your mission is of the utmost importance," he began, and she perked up. "I am trusting you to command this company of ROOT in a siege of Konoha."

Her eyes widened ever so slightly, and she gazed at him with a healthy level of surprise and confusion. "…A full siege of Konoha? With just a few platoons?"

A slight wave of his hand stilled the rising movements of several ROOT behind her, ready to discipline her for questioning their supreme leader. Had it been anyone else to question his orders like this in any other situation, he would have allowed it, but this instance brought him a faint smile. Her skepticism of this venture with the information she was given meant that she was not an idiot, which was good.

"Perhaps more context is in order," Danzo granted, and everyone paid him rapt attention. "Sai and Fu Yamanaka will be accompanying me to Tetsu no Kuni. We have secured the services of Tsuki no Me to assist me in killing the Hokage and his guards at the Kage Summit."

Understanding began to dawn on her, so Danzo continued. "Meanwhile, you will lead this company with an army of Orochimaru's disregarded cursed seal experiments behind you, and you will attack Konoha while they are vulnerable. Allow those wild beasts to run amok on the populace while you all cut down their more competent forces."

Fu slowly nodded, her mind clearly running in overdrive as she took in the plan. Danzo waited for her to gather her thoughts and say what was percolating in her brain.

"Will that be enough, Lord Danzo?" she finally questioned, and he motioned for her to expound. "To my understanding, a surprise attack on Konoha has been attempted in recent years, and it failed. Would just our manpower be enough to overwhelm and destroy them, even with the experiments?"

"The total annihilation of Konoha is not the objective," he explained. "Orochimaru's goal years ago was to distract the village's forces while he killed Hiruzen. Destroying the village would've simply been a bonus, but a joint offensive from incompetent sand dwellers and his ragtag forces was never going to accomplish that. Your goal is different; your goal is to simply weaken them considerably. Flatten their infrastructure, kill their most competent, and leave them helpless to foreign incursion. Give me the opportunity I require to swoop in and finally take the power I should have had decades ago."

He reached into his cloak and retrieved a tattered Bingo Book, tossing it to Fu for her to catch. "You, specifically, have three targets in mind. Only you have the requisite power to combat these individuals and hope to succeed."

The small book had most of its pages torn out, so it didn't take her long to flip through and narrow down the highlighted entries. "Kakashi Hatake, Might Guy, and Tsunade Senju?"

Danzo nodded. "At least one of them will be accompanying the Hokage to the summit. We will dispose of them there. You, however, are tasked with eliminating whoever is left behind. Use everything in your arsenal to do so. You will need every last skill you have trained since your arrival, especially the power of your biju. Use the experiments to your advantage if you must; they are expendable for a reason."

"So, destroying the village with a bijudama is on the table?" Fu asked.

"It is not ideal, but I do possess Wood Release," Danzo shrugged. "Konoha can always be rebuilt if it comes to that."

"Understood," she saluted, as did the rest of the assembled ROOT-nin.

"Excellent," he nodded. "The summit is in one week. I sincerely doubt that you will be able to corral the experiments to sit still and rest on your journey to Konoha, so it will likely be a nonstop trip. Prepare accordingly. Dismissed."

Upon his dismissal, his forces vanished in various sets of flickers, emptying the hall until only he remained. When alone, the faint smile that had been threatening to unleash a snicker of self-satisfaction finally did so. Things were moving along quite well, and his grand plans were on their way to bearing fruit.

Oto did not yet have the firepower to take on the apparent might of Akatsuki, that much was clear. However, Konoha was a different beast entirely. They possessed the most powerful military on the continent, but unlike Akatsuki, Kumo, and now Oto, Konoha had no jinchuriki, and that could be exploited. Two well-trained jinchuriki were enough to spur Jiraiya and Minato Namikaze to flee a battlefield during the Third War, and despite recent rumors, Minato was long dead. In fact, just one well-trained jinchuriki was an army killer all to themselves, and there were very few in Konoha right now who could stand up to one.

A well-trained jinchuriki with an army of bloodthirsty experiments behind them?

It was going to be a rough day for Konoha.

"I can't fucking believe they attempted this."

The irritated and incredulous declaration from Naruto was echoed by Nagato beside him as they studied the mess of fuinjutsu matrices sprawled over the floor which composed what they took to calling "the void."

"It is curious that they would try something as foolhardy as implementing a dangerous, experimental seal of the Uzumaki Clan to trap you," Nagato remarked, his brow furrowing in agitation as he sat cross-legged and parsed the matrix in front of him. "Then again, something of that sort is on-brand for Ohnoki. Using seals pilfered from the Uzumaki to confine one of the few remaining Uzumaki is simply too clichéd for someone like him to pass up on. He thought too highly of himself to the bitter end, as the old guard often does."

"You're no spring chicken yourself, Nagato," Naruto playfully jabbed.

"That only means I'm of the proper age to take off my belt and remind you of the pecking order," Nagato coolly replied with a challenging smirk.

"Anytime, old man," Naruto chuckled, and then he peered over at the portion of the matrix in front of Nagato. "What have you been able to gather over there?"

"You were correct about them weaving spacetime ninjutsu into these formulas, though how they accomplished it still escapes me," Nagato muttered, his Rinnegan narrowing at the chains of kanji before looking back at the scrolls of notes Naruto collected from the ruins of Uzu. "The stabilizers they grafted into this thing should not have been able to bear the amount of strain the chakra flow put on them, nor should the binding seals have constrained any lateral movement in spacetime. The jutsu formulas they used would have easily superseded them."

"You noticed that, too, then," Naruto nodded, his smile becoming a pensive frown. "That's about where I'm at with it; I can't figure out how this monstrosity of fuinjutsu managed to hold together, but I think I was able to put together exactly what they were trying to accomplish."

Nagato finally raised his gaze from the seals below and turned a curious eye to Naruto. "Do tell."

"That jutsu formula you mentioned," Naruto continued, "I've seen it before, or at least something like it. It was in the Forbidden Scroll that I took from Konoha."

Nagato perked up at that, but before he could respond, Konan entered the office with a giant scroll in her arms, deftly navigating around the mess of parchment and kanji with the ease of an angel. Nagato quickly recognized the scroll in her grasp as the copy they made of the Forbidden Scroll.

"Thanks, Mom," Naruto said with a grateful smile as she handed him the scroll and then sat down across from them.

"You're welcome, Naruto," she smiled back while he slid the seals in front of him aside to roll open the scroll, scanning over the jutsu within. "Which one are you looking for?"

"This one," he answered, landing his finger on the parchment. "Hiraishin; the Nidaime's version of it, at least."

He already had both Nagato and Konan's attention, and that attention was now accompanied by slight alarm, but Naruto spoke again before they could voice any concerns.

"They didn't somehow reverse engineer the Hiraishin if that's what you're thinking," he dispelled their burgeoning thoughts. "No, this matrix just uses a weird application of an adjacent principle."

"How so?" Konan asked.

"The basic principle of Hiraishin is plopping you from one point in space to another," Naruto explained. "It's less Body Flicker and more Summoning Jutsu, so that path isn't necessarily linear. It's instantaneous, but when you vanish, in that single instant before you return to the beacon you set, you could be anywhere in spacetime."

He turned back to the seals that had become the bane of his existence of late and dragged his finger along a specific sequence. "The framework for that is here in this jutsu formula, but it's incomplete."

"Incomplete, but still clearly functional," Nagato pondered, his Rinnegan narrowing once again.

"Because this formula isn't designed to take you to any particular point in space, be it in this dimension or another," Naruto answered, a weary hand running through his hair. "When Ohnoki locked me in that cell and completed the loop, the matrix pretty much removed the cell from that point in space but didn't give it a place to go because there was no beacon to go to, only the starting point to act as the anchor. In other words, I was shot into some arbitrary halfway point while not actually going anywhere, simply burning a hole in spacetime like a fucking metaphysical Chibaku Tensei."

Nagato and Konan were both left staring at him in differing degrees of bewilderment. Konan was steadily attempting to make sense of what she was hearing, whereas a pair of Rinnegan regarded him carefully before unfocusing, understanding bleeding into the metallic pool.

"So, I couldn't sense you because the void made it so that there was nothing to sense," Nagato hummed. "You were physically present, but for all intents and purposes, your chakra and spirit were not there at all. The void didn't hide you, as my senses didn't go straight through without detecting you; it simply put up an impenetrable curtain in reality. Fascinating…"

"None of that makes any sense," Konan bluntly remarked, causing Nagato to animatedly flounder and drawing an agreeing snort from Naruto.

"Yeah, that's why this stupid thing was abandoned and had clear warnings to not even attempt to reproduce it," Naruto sighed, running his hand down his face. "I'm genuinely shocked that it didn't collapse in on itself and create a singularity that wiped me and the entirety of Iwagakure out of existence. I actually encountered something similar in the ruins of Uzu, but that vault felt like it had far more integrity than this void, probably because whoever set those up was far more competent than whoever Ohnoki trusted to set up my cell."

"Well, the ordeal is done with, and we dodged a bullet," Konan asserted, giving him a loving rub through his locks to reassure him. "You two have been hunched over this matrix for nearly a day and a half. I believe a break is in order."

Naruto sighed, gladly leaning into her ministrations. "Yeah, you're right. How long until the Kage Summit?"

"Five days," Nagato answered. "It will take us a little over two to arrive in Tetsu, assuming we don't make any stops."

"Good, I still have time," Naruto nodded. "There's this jutsu I've been tinkering with for a while that I want to have perfected before we leave."

"More fuinjutsu?" Nagato questioned with a quirked eyebrow.

"Ninjutsu," Naruto answered with a grin. "I'm trying for the apex of an elemental jutsu."

Nagato fully turned and regarded him with interest. "Tell me more."

"Well, during our last encounter with Orochimaru, his protege did something really fascinating," Naruto began, and Konan graciously let him go when it became clear that he was growing excited. "Rather than molding and shaping his own lightning chakra into a jutsu, he weaponized the ambient lightning in a storm cloud overhead, molding that into a friggin dragon. It was as titanic as it was destructive. We reverse summoned in the nick of time to avoid the impact, but the crater we came back to was monstrous."

"Fascinating, indeed," Nagato remarked, and the rising zeal in his tone as well as Konan's amused snort showed that he was just as excited. "What sort of scale are we working with?"

Naruto cupped his chin, taking a second to think it over. "The devastation was greater than anything I could generate on my own without Sage Mode save for a really big fire jutsu, but it wasn't quite to the scale of a bijudama or when you really put your back into a Shinra Tensei."

Nagato considered that for a moment. "So, perhaps on the level of Konan with prep time?"

"How much prep time are we talking?"

"A full afternoon."

Naruto hummed. "In this case, is she irritated from having to deal with your antics in the morning?"

Nagato almost answered, but he paused and thought it over once more. "Yes, but she also conducted a training session with her team shortly afterward, so it balanced out."

"That lightning jutsu might be comparable, then-"

A slip of paper slapped onto his mouth, ending his analysis there. Nagato nearly laughed before he met the same fate, and both were now floundering under the unimpressed glare of the woman in question.

"Can you two not power-scale me while I'm literally in the room?" she asked, but they weren't foolish enough to believe it was a request. Upon receiving two nods, she removed the paper from their mouths. "Thank you."

"Anyway," Naruto refocused, a mirthful chuckle escaping him, nonetheless, "I've been working on something similar, only with wind instead of lightning. I doubt I can shape the wind into a creature, though, so I'm going for a cyclone. Y'know, nothing too extravagant."

Nagato nodded in understanding, meanwhile, the stare Konan sent him may have been the driest one he had ever received from her to date.

"Nothing too extravagant?" she deadpanned.

"Nothing too extravagant," he cheekily doubled down.

"I would like to think a cyclone is pretty extravagant, Naruto," Konan continued, entertaining this despite her better judgment.

"What do you mean? I can form a few tornadoes at once with a jutsu pretty easily. You've seen me do it."

"Dropping a tornado on someone and dropping a cyclone on them are very different."

"Splitting hairs," Nagato jumped in, unperturbed by Konan rolling her eyes at him. "What is a cyclone if not a happy, polyamorous marriage of several tornadoes?"

"See?" Naruto thumbed toward his fellow Uzumaki with a vindicated grin. "Uncle Nagato gets it."

Konan, meanwhile, was left massaging her temples, an activity she was quite familiar with when around the both of them. "You two will be the death of me."

Suddenly (and thankfully in Konan's case), a puff of smoke in the center of the office captured their undivided attention, but no hostile movement was required when the new arrival revealed himself to be a man-sized fire salamander.

"Seidai," Naruto greeted, though even he was surprised by the Sage's presence. "I wasn't expecting a visit…"

"Least of all from an old fuck like me, I can read between the lines, brat," Seidai balked, his leathery, bright yellow skin with black patches signifying him as the more vulgar of the sibling duo as he scanned over the room. "The three of you are here, as well as this godforsaken fuinjutsu. Good. Makes this easier."

"Elder Seidai," Nagato politely greeted with a slight, curt nod. Larger salamanders understandably still made him somewhat nervous.

"To what do we owe the visit?" Konan asked, hiding her nervousness better than Nagato.

"None of that formal shit," Seidai groaned, walking over the parchment spread over the floor without a care. "You kids hide your trauma worse than a fresh choir boy, I swear."

"How was the Summon Clan Summit?" Naruto asked, cutting right to why he assumed Seidai was there before either Konan or Nagato could respond to that crack.

Seidai grunted. "A shit show, as expected. Everyone was at each other's throats, and no one could agree on anything. And only one of those damn Toads showed up. Said they were busy training a new Sage. Stuck-up bastards."

"Uh huh," Naruto nodded along to his amphibious sensei's ranting. "Anything big?"

"Yeah," Seidai confirmed before pointing to the mess of seals below. "This shit; you all are banned from fuinjutsu."

"Wait what-"

"Well, that was what a few of us wanted, anyway," Seidai sighed. "No, because we were able to identify the problem and you three handled it so quickly, the majority voted in favor of allowing humanity to proceed as normal with closer observation for the time being. Your asses are safe… for now."

"Banning the practice of fuinjutsu was on the table?" Konan questioned, unsure how that would even be enforced or if she even wanted to know.

"As was the wholesale extermination of humanity," Seidai added, alarming the three. "Fortunately, that would have only been seriously considered if the problem spiraled out of control and created a black hole, or if the void caught the attention of any… unsavory parties in the cosmos."

"…I don't like the sound of that," Naruto hesitantly spoke.

"You shouldn't. Not a lot of us survived the last time it happened, and it took centuries for the clans to recoup their numbers."

"What exactly happened to cull the numbers of the summon clans?" Nagato probed. "It couldn't have been a standard war."

"I fucking wish," Seidai lowly muttered before focusing on Nagato. "Let's just say that humans didn't always have chakra, nor is this the first iteration of humanity on this planet. Or the second. A lot of shit has happened in your recorded history, and a lot more shit happened before it that will forever remain unrecorded, as well as all the shit before even that."

He unfocused from Nagato and returned his beady, black gaze to the group. "Kodai and I had to go to bat for you overdeveloped monkeys really hard. We really don't want to annihilate you all and start over from scratch again, but the summon clans will if we must. Better that than to deal with those fucking aliens or Omnipotence again."

"What?"

"Don't worry about it, just promise me this," Seidai urged, stepping forward and meeting Naruto's gaze directly. "Do not ever attempt some stupid shit like this again. I know it wasn't you specifically who did so; I'm speaking generally to humanity as a whole. If you catch wind of anyone tearing holes in spacetime, kill them. If you encounter anyone traveling between dimensions, ensure they never return. Do whatever you must to keep this planet off of any unsightly radars, do you hear me? Because if you all end up drawing the attention of some pale fuckwits trying to eat the planet again, and the summon clans have to come together to Mafuba them away again, I can't promise that the Salamanders will be able to save you or your next of kin in the inevitable hard reset of humanity. Am I clear?"

The intensity in Seidai's gaze unnerved Naruto to high hell, but he got a hold of himself and nodded. "Crystal."

"Fan-fuckin'-tastic," Seidai said, stepping back and sending Konan and Nagato each a final nod. "That's all I needed to say. I'll be off."

And then he was gone in another puff of smoke, returning to his swamp to presumably throw who knows how many profanity-laden insults at his twin brother. Naruto, Nagato, and Konan were left in silence, stewing in the information that Seidai regaled them with. Naruto, simply glad that everything seemed to be resolved for the moment, opted to push the concerning prospects of world-ending invaders and the future extinction of humanity out of his mind for the time being, as there was no use agonizing over it. Instead, he stood up and stretched the kinks out of his body.

"I'm gonna…" Naruto began, but he found that his voice was still a bit unsteady. "I'm gonna go practice that jutsu. Keep spreading my chakra out, and all that…"

Without any further delay, he left the office, no longer caring about the matrices he was walking right over. Once the door slid shut, Nagato and Konan were left alone, and the weight of Seidai's words grew even heavier with every passing second. Slowly, they two locked eyes, and within a moment, their minds melded, locking on to a singular train of thought.

"We have to kill him," Konan finally spoke up.

"Mhm," Nagato nodded.

"He can't leave the summit alive."

"No, he can't."

"We need to kill him this time, Nagato. He can't escape. We can't let him."

"He will show up, and we will reduce him to paste when he does."

Karin carefully pushed the needle into the stuffed fox one last time, getting the final stitch on the ninth tail of the ordinary fox plushie that she had fashioned into a one-of-a-kind Kyubi plushie. Taking a final gander at her handiwork, she beamed. It was fabulous work if she did say so herself, and she knew that both Naruto and Kurama would love it (though perhaps Kurama would like it far more than him, but that was perfectly okay; it was a birthday gift for the both of them, after all).

It was also the only thing keeping her brain occupied in the lead-up to their eventual departure to Tetsu, so that certainly helped-

"Watcha doin'?" came the sudden voice of Tayuya popping up beside her at her desk in an attempt to startle her, but all she received was a blank stare for her troubles.

"Tayuya, I can sense everything and everyone in this village," she matter-of-factly reminded. "You're not going to sneak up on me."

"Worth a shot," she shrugged, then she took a gander at the fox on the desk. "You finished the plushie."

"Yep!" Karin preened. "I'm gonna give it to him before we leave. Now's as good a time as any, I guess. Y'know, before we run the risk of dying horribly in a battle with the leader of Tsuki no Me and all."

Tayuya blinked, slowly nodding while inwardly noting to keep an eye on her. A little bit of neuroticism could keep you alive in this line of work, but still…

"Speaking of the shithead," Tayuya drawled, electing to move on, "where is he?"

"Last I pinged him, he was in one of the training grounds," Karin answered, her gaze moving off of Tayuya and fixing in a random direction before cringing. "He's… carpet bombing the training ground with wind blades? Probably practicing a jutsu."

"Wanna go check it out?"

"Hell yeah!"

Kisame couldn't remember the last time the sky looked so dull. Not even when he discovered that his old master was leaking information to enemies was the sky so grey. Perhaps it was the approaching storm clouds hanging overhead like a ceiling tapestry in the high altitude of Kumogakure, or perhaps it was simply the fact that he was alone for the first time in a while.

He liked Itachi. He really did. Despite Madara and Zetsu not trusting him, Kisame found Itachi to be good company, and that was pretty much all he could ask for. Now, he was dead, and Kisame wished he could say that it was back to business as usual, but it just wasn't the same without him around. "The vibes were off," as his sharks would often say. Hell, even Samehada was mourning the loss of their rousing conversationalist. He couldn't get her to get excited about their newest task as they waited in the Valley of Clouds and Lightning for their quickly approaching target, and Kisame honestly couldn't blame her.

"Trainin' all mornin', my belly is starvin'," a voice from the top of the stairs echoed through the area as Kisame looked to see the Hachibi jinchuriki, Killer Bee, animatedly making his way down the stairway. "I'm a rap-lovin' guy, I got me a hunch, and so I just decided on sukiyaki for lunch! Yeah…"

Bee stopped at the base of the stairs with a start upon noticing Kisame across the way.

"Hachibi jinchuriki," Kisame addressed, slowly placing a hand on Samehada's hilt.

Bee gazed at him for a long moment, looking him up and down while seemingly considering something only he and his tenant were privy to. Soon, he placed a hand on his chin and hummed.

"Y'know, I don't usually do fish in my sukiyaki…" he mused with a stroke of his chin before he smirked. "But a man who don't experiment ain't got the right temperament, yeah!"

Kisame didn't respond to that, his expression only growing even flatter. Perhaps he could find some joy in this fight and take his mind off of his lonesome woes, but he wouldn't bet on it.

"Let's just get this over with," Kisame groused, pulling Samehada off of his back.

The time had finally come for the remaining Kage to meet, and Jiraiya had no idea what to expect. Truthfully, he still felt like a fish out of water in this stupid hat and robe (the robe was luckily optional for the summit as traveling all that way while wearing it would have been a bitch and a half). Being a desk jockey while simultaneously holding the world on his shoulders with his decisions was nowhere on his list of preferred occupations, nor was it on his list of activities to keep himself busy in retirement from active duty. With all that in mind, however, as he sat at the Hokage's designated place at the center of the long, rounded table with Tsunade and Kakashi in the rafters above him, gazing at the other three Kage in the room before zeroing in on the empty space that would have sat the Tsuchikage, he was reminded of why he was there. He was reminded of what his real mission as Hokage was.

"Place your Kage headpieces before you," ordered the stern, aged voice of Mifune, leader of the samurai of Tetsu no Kuni.

Jiraiya removed his hat, placing it on the table in front of him in unison with the others. With their hats all off, and all activity ceased, he finally got to take a real survey of the current political landscape. Ay the Unruly was exactly as Jiraiya remembered him to be: muscly and intense. He idly wondered if Ay was natty; to get that bulky in such high altitudes was a feat in and of itself.

Beside him was Temari, someone he was familiar enough with after she spent some time in Konoha getting treatment from Tsunade as a result of duking it out with Sasori of the Red Sand. The relationship between Konoha and Suna had understandably been pretty warm after that, and any hostilities that may have remained after the failed invasion staged by Orochimaru all those years ago had mostly been squashed (in large part due to Danzo no longer being present). Had it not been for her redheaded brother keeping a close eye on him in his periphery, Jiraiya might have analyzed just how well she filled out the black kimono she was wearing.

Finally, at the edge of the table opposite the Raikage was someone who would have had a monopoly on his attention in any other circumstance: the lovely, buxom Mizukage, Mei Terumi. He didn't know a whole lot about her beyond leading the rebellion against the previous Mizukage and the fact that she wielded two kekkei genkai, but getting a good, long look at her now, it took everything in him to not giggle at her splendor. The way her plentiful bust was nearly spilling out of her dress-

A hard smack to the back of the head yanked him out of his impromptu research, and he annoyedly turned around, only to be met with the most piercing glare that promised nothing but horrific violence from Tsunade if he didn't behave. He said nothing, only giving her a frantic nod before she flickered back up to the rafters.

"You, the five Kage-" Mifune continued, but he immediately paused and blanched when he realized his mistake. His gaze flickered to the empty table before he cleared his throat.

"…four Kage," he corrected, "assemble here today in response to Lady Mizukage's summons. I, Mifune, will preside over these proceedings. Now, let the Kage Summit commence!"

"Yes, four Kage, indeed," Ay took the initiative to begin despite not being the one to call the summit. "There are only four of us now, and yet, somehow, I feel like I'm the only one bothered by this fact."

"No, the total annihilation of an entire hidden village is concerning," Mei calmly responded. "I think we can all agree on that."

"Sure, but it's who is responsible for Iwagakure's absence that's the real issue," Ay growled. "I have eyes and ears in every nation like any decent Kage. I know who the scant survivors of the attack on Iwagakure are saying is responsible!"

"And would you like to fill us in?" Temari questioned in a bored tone to match her head resting in her palm. She no doubt already knew, but it was clear that she was just trying to get a rise out of Ay. For what reason, Jiraiya couldn't determine.

"You know damn well who I'm talking about, brat!" Ay shouted, rising from his seat and causing everyone in the rafters to tense up. "It was Akatsuki, the same damn group that fought in Kiri's civil war and is the sole reason the Mizukage is even sitting here right now!"

"I beg your pardon?" Mei replied with a dangerously narrowed gaze.

Ay, however, continued without missing a beat. "Every single one of your villages either had or currently has dealings with Akatsuki! You're all buddy-buddy with them, and we have just seen what happens when someone won't cow to this alliance. That's why I don't trust any of you. I have no interest in any discourse when it is abundantly clear what the play is here."

"And what exactly is the play?" Mei challenged, all cordiality seemingly out of the window at this point. Jiraiya needed to step in before this devolved further.

"Hold on now," Jiraiya interrupted, raising his hand to cut through the festering tension. "Let's all take a breath and not get too hasty. Lord Raikage, I get where you're coming from, believe me, but I can assure you that there isn't some grand scheme at work. We were all just as blindsided by the destruction of Iwagakure as you were, and while I can't speak for the others, I can say that I wouldn't have ever signed off on something like that."

Ay's scowl deepened, but he didn't make any movements. A deep rumble escaped his throat, and he slowly lowered back to his seat, signifying to Jiraiya that he might have successfully quelled the tensions for the moment-

"I would've," came the blunt declaration of Temari beside him, completely undoing the dispersal of the tension.

"Lady Kazekage-"

"Look, with the relationship my village and Iwagakure have had practically since the formation of the hidden villages, I'm not gonna pretend that I'm particularly broken up about what happened to them," Temari explained, nothing about her tone the slightest bit apologetic as she looked to him. "And, honestly, Lord Hokage? I'd call bullshit that you do, either. You fought in back-to-back wars against them. You know exactly what kind of people they could be."

"They'd say the same about us," Jiraiya countered.

"I bet they would, but they're not really saying much of anything now, are they?" Temari callously rebutted, and even Jiraiya had to suppress a wince at that remark. Sometimes, he forgot that relations between Suna and Iwa had always been particularly nasty, far more than even Iwa and Konoha.

"So, you admit that you would've done the same if you were in a position to!" Ay spat at Temari, and she shrugged.

"I'll do what's best for Sunagakure and the people of Kaze ten times out of ten," she firmly answered. "For years, our Daimyo had been withholding missions from us, instead sending them to other hidden villages because they were cheaper. It had steadily been tanking the village's economy, and that meant that the surrounding towns that depended on us were also suffering."

Temari smiled. "So, I had him assassinated."

That struck everyone in the room silent. Even Gaara and Kankuro weren't aware of that. The idea of a Kage assassinating their Daimyo…

Sure, most Kage probably thought about it at some point, but to actually do it??

"Our new Daimyo is far more cognizant of how a hidden village survives than the last one was or simply cared to be," Temari continued, "so he hasn't been forwarding mission requests to other nations. Since then, in only a few short years, our people have been thriving. Sure, we live in the desert and have to exist a certain way in order to adapt, but regular people aren't starving anymore. People aren't scrounging up whatever they can to make sure they make it to the next day. Our economy is no longer on the brink of collapse. People just aren't plain miserable in Sunagakure anymore."

Then, her tone hardened. "You know who was a threat to that newfound harmony? Iwagakure, doing what they do best by poking at our fucking borders just to gauge how we would respond and if an invasion to capture some of our territory was worth it. The same old fucking song and dance they've been doing for decades. The very same shit that has instigated not one, not two, but three World Wars."

Temari looked around the room at the wide-eyed occupants. "Tell me when I'm telling lies, I'm just calling it like it is! Hell, they were doing the same to Amegakure, too. The difference is that they poked a bear inside of Ame that was perfectly content with poking back. They fucked around and found out, and if no one else is comfortable saying it out loud, then I just did. They were warmongers; what happened to them was inevitable."

Finished, Temari exhaled a deep, emotional breath, and her shoulders sagged as if years of pent-up anger had just been released. You could hear a pin drop in the room in the immediate aftermath. Jiraiya… well, he couldn't say that any of that was incorrect, and he doubted that anyone in the room would say otherwise, but it definitely wasn't the thing to say to alleviate the developing tension if Ay's simmering fury was anything to go by. Kumo and Iwa were not allies by any stretch, but neither were they hostile to each other to Jiraiya's knowledge, so the implicit message of, "play nice or else Akatsuki will get you," was NOT going to go over well with the Raikage.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, a crash from outside of the conference room drew each of their attention to the door.

"Halt, you cannot go in-"

"Shinra Tensei."

Suddenly, a samurai burst through the door with a yelp, or perhaps it was more accurate to say that he was blasted through the door and into the room. Within the blink of an eye, each of the Kage's bodyguards was on the floor and taking up protective positions. Kakashi's headband was up and a Raikiri was just waiting to come to life in his palm, meanwhile, Jiraiya could practically see the chakra emanating from Tsunade's fist. He would've taken a moment to be touched had it not been for those who walked through the door after the samurai.

Into the room stepped Pain in full Akatsuki regalia as well as the hat of the recently departed Tsuchikage on his head, and who else but Konan and Naruto following him on either side? The two samurai flanking Mifune drew their swords and were about to leap into action, but they were accosted from behind by Naruto (who had pretty much blurred through the chaos to all but the keenest of eyes) coiling them in chakra chains while disarming them of their blades.

"Relax," Naruto said to the room, though it came out much more like an order. "We're not here to attack."

That, understandably, did not settle anyone's nerves except Tsunade who did actually lower her hand and release the tension in her form. Kakashi, while still on alert, also stepped back and lowered his headband. The rest of the room remained as they were, either unsure of how to proceed or outright refusing to stand down. Akatsuki had quite literally crashed an international summit wearing part of the uniform of the very subject of the day. If anything screamed "aggression," it was that, and yet…

"Ao, Chojuro, it's alright," Mei calmly addressed, breaking the tense silence. "Stand down."

"You, too, Gaara, Kankuro," Temari waved them off, as well.

"What the hell is this?!" Ay furiously shouted, his anger reaching a boiling point as his fist slammed through the table. "It's not enough for Akatsuki to wipe a village off the map, so now you intrude on this meeting?!"

"You called a Kage Summit, so here I am," Pain answered simply, calmly walking past a stony Mifune who hadn't yet moved a muscle. He reached the empty spot at the table where the Tsuchikage would have been sitting before placing the Tsuchikage's hat on the table.

Then, Konan retrieved a scroll from her cloak and unsealed another hat, this one purple instead of brown with "雨" inscribed on it. Pain slowly and venerably put the new hat on before smacking the Tsuchikage's hat off the table, letting it clatter to the floor like an obsolete, discarded toy. Then, he made a show of removing his newly crowned Amekage hat and placed it on the table before he finally sat. It was the ultimate display of political audacity, boldly declaring in no uncertain terms that Amegakure had deposed Iwagakure and proudly taken its place on the world stage.

The room hadn't been strangers to stunned silence since the meeting commenced, but nothing beat this one. No one had anything to say to that because what the fuck do you even say to that? In a month of unprecedented events, this day may have been the most unprecedented of them all.

Then, Pain looked at Jiraiya, and he sent him a nod. "Good to see you again, Sensei. You've clearly gotten older."

And yet again, the tension in the room had been mowed down by a freight train. Mei quickly hid a snort at the scene, Tsunade didn't bother hiding her snort, Kakashi coughed into his fist to mask the laugh that escaped him, and Temari was doing her very best to hold in her laughter, but she was ready to burst.

And Jiraiya? All he could do was hold his head in his hands and curse the day he lost that stupid game of rock-paper-scissors.

"Naruto," Pain called, and Jiraiya looked back up to see Naruto nod and release the two samurai from their bindings, offering a quick apology to both of them before appearing behind Pain alongside Konan.

"I won't ask again," Ay growled, sparks beginning to emanate from him, and everyone grew alert once more. "Why is Akatsuki here?!"

"I've already answered you," Pain replied without a care for the obvious threat from the Raikage. "I am here for the summit. You cannot have a Five Kage Summit with only four Kage, and since Iwagakure is no more, Amegakure will fill that spot."

"I've had it-"

"Stand down, Lord Raikage," Mifune surprisingly commanded, causing Ay to spin and face him with a thunderous scowl.

"I do not take orders from you, Mifune!" Ay barked.

"We will not devolve into violence," Mifune stood his ground. "You all have come for a peaceful discussion of the events of the fall of Iwagakure, and it appears that the parties responsible are present and willing to engage in cordial discourse. Represent your village and nation well by not behaving in a manner that lacks civility, lest you be removed until a time at which you can be civil."

The threat was so obvious that Mifune didn't even need to unsheathe his sword. At the moment, everyone was either already familiar with Akatsuki or willing to engage in discussion except for Ay, which would put him at an immediate disadvantage should he push the issue.

A loud, angry growl escaped him, but the beginnings of his Lightning Armor petered out, and he stomped back to his seat and sat down before throwing a dismissive gesture toward Pain. "Speak."

Darui and Cee remained at Ay's side, and none of the other bodyguards saw fit to return to the rafters either. That was apparently fine, as Naruto and Konan clearly did not intend to leave Pain's side. Even so, they were back to at least a temporary period of nonaggression, allowing Jiraiya to capitalize.

"Right, so, Iwagakure," he began, facing Pain. "Care to explain why you, quite literally, wiped an entire hidden village off the map? And you did so without even a simple call beforehand??"

"I wasn't aware that I had to confer with you before rescuing my nephew," Pain coolly replied.

"That's… you know what I meant-" Jiraiya sputtered before he saw Konan and Naruto's burgeoning smiles, and his face hit the table in exasperation. Tsunade and Temari openly laughing at him certainly wasn't helping matters.

"…I believe it would be easier to start at the beginning," Mifune spoke up once more, his voice mildly laden with caution knowing that this was the mysterious man who killed Hanzo the Salamander in single combat. "Why did you destroy Iwagakure, Mr…?"

"I am Pain," he answered.

Mifune nodded. "Why did you destroy Iwagakure, Pain?"

"They invaded our borders with a joint offensive from a company of Iwa-nin and mercenaries of Tsuki no Me," Pain succinctly answered. "That alone is an act of war, and we were well within our right to respond in kind. However, they added insult to injury when they captured my nephew and held him captive to have the Kyubi stripped of him and resealed into another vessel."

…Jiraiya floundered for a proper reply to that. He wasn't expecting such a straightforward justification. Iwagakure struck first and attacked Naruto directly, so Pain and Konan annihilated them.

"Seems like a pretty open-and-shut case to me," Temari chipped in. "Like I said, they fucked around and found out."

And they did, Jiraiya had to admit that, but this was still a far greater loss of life than he was comfortable with.

"Okay, I understand why you retaliated against a brazen invasion," Jiraiya carefully began, not losing his nerve with a pair of Rinnegan boring into his skull. "I certainly see why you'd engage in an infiltration of Iwagakure proper to get Naruto back. However, did you truly need to kill the entirety of the village, civilians included? If you had to attack the shinobi to get to Naruto, fine, but why kill so many innocent civilians, Naga-"

He stopped when Pain's Rinnegan narrowed ever so slightly and Konan's amber glare pierced right through him, and he took a moment to refocus before continuing his questioning. "Why flatten an entire village for the decision of one short old man and the actions of a few hundred ninjas? There were only a handful of survivors, Pain; some were a few lucky shinobi who made it out with a missing limb or two, but most were civilians who will be traumatized for the rest of their lives, their only crime being that they were in the way."

"I believe we've already had this discussion, Sensei," Pain simply replied. "Purging the stains of one's bloodline to ensure that their blood will not return to continue the cycle of vengeance."

"How could a civilian possibly strike back against you?" Jiraiya argued.

"Do not forget that Konan and I are civilian-born," Pain rebutted. "It is not out of the realm of possibility that these civilians' progeny could possess the potential to grow powerful enough to spill further blood in the name of their justice. Such actions would simply perpetuate the cycle of hatred, and I am not in the business of doing so. There are other ways of breaking that cycle than to simply not participate; we do not have the luxury of choosing that option."

Before Jiraiya could respond, Pain continued. "In regards to Ohnoki, we eliminated a warmonger who sought to trample over those he viewed as lesser for the sake of his own nation's prosperity, and we only did so within established convention. It comes down to this: what happened to Iwagakure was simply a result of them sparking a war that they could not hope to win."

"But isn't more war exactly what Akatsuki seeks to avoid?" Jiraiya argued.

Pain shrugged. "Baby steps. Kumo wasn't built in a day."

"Damn straight," Ay grumbled.

Jiraiya couldn't get past the obscene civilian death toll, though. It was just so incredibly unnecessary.

He sighed. "I gotta tell ya, a devastating strike-back against Iwa would be one thing, but practically wiping out the entire population like that… that just doesn't sit right with me."

He faced Pain with a hardened gaze. "In destroying Iwa, you eliminated a portion of Tsuchi's economy in one fell swoop, as well as all of their military security, which will be felt throughout the entire nation. Even more civilian lives will be affected as a result of this, assuming various bandit groups, gangs, and militias aren't already seizing chunks of land for themselves, going to war with each other over said land and resources, or fighting off the Daimyo's forces' attempts to keep the peace. Only time will tell how this shakes out, but you may have damned a great nation to total collapse. You went too far, Pain."

Pain unflinchingly met Jiraiya's gaze in turn. "I won't apologize for it. If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing."

The two remained locked in a tense stare-down, the otherworldly intensity of the Rinnegan matching Jiraiya's hardened gaze tenfold. He internally sighed; if there was one thing Nagato certainly had, it was conviction. He truly believed in what he was doing and wouldn't be dissuaded from it. The sentiment, "Naruto is far more important to me than the lives of civilians," also went unsaid, but it was one Jiraiya could empathize with, which made things even more tiresome.

Eventually, Jiraiya was the one to break, and he heaved a long, defeated sigh. "Yeah, I know."

Pain did not sag as he had, but his Rinnegan did minutely soften. "If it's any consolation, Sensei, the danger Ohnoki posed to world peace far exceeded the danger the rabble of Tsuchi now pose to themselves. Realistically, Tsuchi's territory will be claimed and annexed by a whole host of other nations looking to expand. Sooner or later, Ishigakure will be at the Tsuchi Daimyo's doorstep to make an ultimatum, and when the Daimyo ultimately accepts, Ishi shinobi will clean up the warring factions and take whatever available land is left, absorbing it into their own nation to create the newest northern power."

"You seem to have thought this through," Mei mused with interest, and only now did Jiraiya realize how she had not taken her eyes off of Pain since he entered, or rather, her eyes hadn't left his Rinnegan. Jiraiya supposed that it was a pretty rare sight to see.

"I know how this world works and how easily people can succumb to their greed," Pain shrugged. "I've seen my fair share of it."

A sound escaped Ay's nostrils, and it was somewhere between an annoyed huff and a derisive snort. "I've sat and listened to this nonsense for long enough."

"Is there something on your mind, Raikage?" Pain asked in a tone that couldn't be mistaken for anything other than mocking by even a child.

Ay was growing as red as a tomato with rage, but he somehow kept a lid on it. "The problem is you! You're as transparent as a glass of water; I see right through your bullshit even if you have these idiots fooled!"

That remark wasn't going to win him any friends, but he was clearly past the point of caring as he continued. "You fancy yourself a crusader of some warped idea of world peace, but you're just a wannabe despot looking to indirectly control the Great Nations. I want nothing to do with it, you, or any of you for that matter."

Then, Ay stood up from his seat and sent everyone in the room a contemptuous sneer. "I'm done with this farce."

"Oh? Leaving so soon, Raikage?"

The unfamiliar voice stilled the blood of everyone in the room. They all looked up to find a man standing on the ceiling looking down at them through an orange mask with a singular eyehole.

"Come on, won't you stay a while?" he said, dropping from the ceiling and landing on the rail of the rafters to overlook them all. "Things are only just getting interesting."

Jiraiya instantly recognized the cloak he wore as being that of Tsuki no Me, and he reflexively bit his thumb just in case. He wasn't the only one, as Tsunade was doing the same, and Kakashi's Sharingan was right back out only with a Raikiri actually flaring to life this time. Mei and Temari were also now on their feet with their bodyguards ready for anything in front of them. Everyone in the room had risen to the intrusion, even Mifune and his guards…

…Everyone except Pain, who continued sitting without even looking towards the masked man.

"It's about time you showed up, Madara Uchiha," Pain addressed, shocking everyone with the name he used. "For a moment, I thought I'd have to hunt you down."

"Oh?" Madara replied. "You missed me that much? I'm flattered."

Pain grunted, finally standing up and looking toward Madara sitting on the rafters above. "Having you in front of me makes killing you a lot less bothersome."

"I'd imagine so," he chuckled. "Unfortunately, though, I did not come here for a battle with you."

Pain merely tilted his head. "Perhaps I'm suffering from dementia, but I don't remember implying that you had a choice in the matter."

A wisecrack at a time like this brought Jiraiya's incredulous gaze over to Pain, and only then did he notice something happening with Naruto behind him. He was perfectly still, and black markings were slowly developing around his closed eyes. It couldn't be…

'Naruto is a fucking Sage?!'

When he opened his eyes, they were dominated by black pupils with yellow sclera peeking out around them, confirming Jiraiya's suspicions, but Jiraiya didn't get any time to think about it before Naruto snapped around to face the wall.

"Son of a bitch!" Naruto growled at what would seem like nothing to most, but Jiraiya knew that he was sensing something happening a good distance away.

"Go," Pain instructed, not peeling his Rinnegan away from Madara. "We'll handle things here."

Without a word, Naruto blasted out of the room through the ceiling, presumably making haste to whatever he sensed. The crash jolted everyone in the room, and it nearly spurred them all into attacking the supposed Madara.

"Ah ah ah," Madara chastised them with a raised hand like children. "Everyone stay where you are. Like I said, I didn't come for a battle."

His singular eyehole traveled back to Pain and Konan. "You two, especially. You wouldn't want another mishap to happen between Naruto and Zetsu, would you?"

"I will skin you-" Konan spat before Pain put a hand on her shoulder, stopping her short.

"Let him say what he needs to say," Pain dismissed. "Naruto will be fine."

"Are you sure?" Jiraiya asked him.

"It makes no difference," Pain answered. "He will die here today regardless."

"Cute," Madara mocked before spreading his arms and gesturing to the room. "Now, since Pain already let the cat out of the bag, I am indeed Madara Uchiha."

"Cut the shit!" Tsunade barked. "Madara has been dead for decades. My grandfather killed him himself."

"Your grandfather was an idealistic fool, Tsunade," Madara balked. "He was blind to the truth of the village we created, so of course he'd be too blind to see through Izanagi. That is how I faked my death and escaped, but my injuries from our battle were much too severe to recover from. I am but a shell of my former self."

Tsunade clearly wasn't convinced. Madara was definitely petty enough to do something of that sort from the stories she heard from her grandparents, but he had far too much pride to hide behind a mask for any reason, regardless of how damaged he was. Still, Jiraiya wanted to connect the dots with Tsuki no Me's activities.

"And is collecting the biju supposed to restore your power?" Jiraiya probed.

Madara hummed. "I suppose you could say that, but there's far more to it. I want to create a better world. All shall become one with me, the complete possession form that unites all!"

"What the hell does that even mean?!" Ay growled.

"There's an ancient stone tablet passed down within the Uchiha Clan, stashed in a secret room beneath Konoha," Madara began. "Upon it are written secrets engraved by the Sage of Six Paths himself. They cannot be read without a Sharingan or a Rinnegan-"

"Cliff notes, please," Temari groaned, already tired of this explanation she knew would be longwinded.

Jiraiya could swear that the eyehole of Madara's mask twitched in annoyance.

"The Sage of Six Paths saved the world from a vile, destructive beast that would have annihilated the planet if left to its own devices," Madara continued. "It was the aggregate of all the chakra of the nine biju: the Jubi. The Sage of Six Paths developed a special ninjutsu that he used to seal the power of the Jubi within himself, becoming the world's first jinchuriki. Later, on his death bed, he partitioned the chakra of the Jubi into the nine beasts we know today, and that technique to seal away the biju into vessels survived with them. Then, he banished the powerless husk of the Jubi into the sky and used a grand Chibaku Tensei to seal it away, creating the moon in the process."

"So, you want to reassemble those nine separated chakras," Mifune reasoned. "In other words, you want to wield the immense power of all nine biju. I understand that part of your plan, but what I want to know is what you plan to do with that power."

"Revive the Jubi and become its jinchuriki, of course," Madara said. "Then, with my power restored, I will project my eye onto the moon and launch the Infinite Tsukuyomi, a super genjutsu that captures all humans on Earth!"

"…What?" Tsunade uttered in a mixture of incredulity and what sounded like a hint of aggravation.

However, Madara continued unabated. "As a result, by controlling every single one of them, I shall unify the entire world! I will create a world without hatred or war! Everything will become one with me! Everything will be united! That is project Tsuki no Me!"

There was a beat of silence in the room following that declaration in which Madara was faced with two similar reactions from the room. Most were looking at him like the madman he was, while some were gawking at him as if he was fucking stupid.

Then, as it seemed to be the theme for the day, there was Pain.

"This is quite different from the fanciful yarn you tried to spin us all those years ago about collecting the beasts to create a super weapon," Pain mused. "I see now why that plan sounded so ludicrous; consolidating the power of the beasts within yourself sounds more on-brand."

"To think, Akatsuki wouldn't be the only tyrannical psychopaths preaching peace through subjugation today," Ay bitterly spat. "Your plan is as ridiculous as that tacky ass cloak you're wearing! If you think we're just gonna hand the world over to you, you might as well crawl back into the hole the Shodai Hokage left you in and stay dead."

"That kind of peace is nothing more than an illusion," Jiraiya darkly added. "Nothing about it is meaningful. Nothing about it is earned."

"What even exists inside such a genjutsu world?" Mei piled on. "There's no hope, no dreams; it's just an escape!"

Madara chuckled. "And yet, with all your talk, the five Kage have accomplished nothing to this end. One of you even went so far in the other direction that Pain stepped in and eliminated him. It's why you're all here today; you of all people should be well aware of the truth by now that hope is just a deception. Hope is a tool wielded by cowards and weaklings who can't or won't take action themselves to achieve a better world."

His gaze trailed back to Pain. "The only ones of you who actually accept this are Akatsuki, but their plans of achieving peace are just as foolish and shortsighted. It'll never last."

His gaze swept back over the room. "That's why I need the remaining biju from you. Akatsuki alone possesses three of them, and if the rest of you want to be as stingy as them, then we'll just have to go to war."

"You're threatening war?" Jiraiya questioned, malice pouring from his tone.

"There's no way in hell I'm handing over my brother to you!" Temari spat, and the cork of Gaara's gourd popped right out as sand began to rise from within.

"Exit one war just to charge into another," Mei resignedly sighed. "I'm with the Kazekage and Akatsuki. I refuse to hand over anything to you."

Madara tsked. "I may be a husk of my glory days, but I am still Madara Uchiha. I can make what happened to Iwa look like a leisure stroll in the park, and I won't be alone. Pain and Konan down there know very well how easy it will be for me to amass an army."

"Is that supposed to deter us?" Jiraiya fired back, invigorated by everyone's collective resolve. "We won't submit to you. You can try to take the biju for this scheme of yours, and we'll just put you down for good."

Madara just sighed, sounding almost regretful at their refusal to cooperate. "Your conviction is admirable, but ultimately misplaced-"

"I think we've heard enough of this."

Within the blink of an eye, several black rods shot out of Pain's palm, flying straight through Madara as if he wasn't even there right as another body crashed through the ceiling and locked Madara in its clutches. In that same instant, two more bodies shot from under the floor and flew toward the pair, one of them having a set of blades in place of an arm while the other was simply extending his palm to touch Madara.

Because this all happened in a matter of moments, almost no one was prepared or able to react, and only after Madara seemingly phased out of the other Rinnegan wielder's grasp (was this an extension of Nagato's jutsu?) did Ay spark into his Lightning Armor and flicker in front of Madara with a thunderous right hook. Unfortunately, Ay phased right through him, as well, but Madara's moment of stillness was exactly the window Pain needed.

"Bansho Ten'in," he intoned, and Madara momentarily froze before being pulled directly to Pain's palm like an invisible tractor beam.

Another black rod jutted out of his palm as Madara got within range, and it impaled him straight through with a squelch.

"You're not going anywhere now," Pain remarked as the rod resonated, keeping Madara in place.

Then, one of the party crashers, a man with a head of long, orange hair the same shade as Pain's (Jiraiya really needed to ask about that after all this), hopped down to the ground and stood behind Madara, placing his palm atop Madara's scalp. A moment of pregnant silence passed, however, before Pain scowled.

"You are a clone," he stated.

"Sorry, but the real one is watching over the Kyubi and ensuring his investment right now," the clone tittered before vanishing in a puff of smoke.

"DAMN IT!" Konan yelled. "We have to find them!"

"I know where he is," Pain assured. "I resonated with his chakra, so I can still sense him. Let's go."

"Wait!" Jiraiya stepped up, halting them before they could leave. "If you two are going, so am I. We have a chance to end this before it begins, so let's take it."

"Ditto," Temari spoke up, flipping open her fan, and her siblings were right behind her.

Jiraiya looked behind him to Tsunade and Kakashi, sending them each a questioning glance. "How about you guys?"

"Your orders, Lord Hokage," Kakashi replied with a nod.

Tsunade, meanwhile, was much less formal about it, cracking her knuckles with an evil smirk. "Let's go kill us a fraud."

"I won't be left out of the party," Mei spoke up next. "Any enemy of Akatsuki is an enemy of Kiri. Ao, Chojuro, let's go."

"Yes, Lady Mizukage," both men saluted.

"What say you, Lord Raikage?" Mifune asked, turning their attention to the glowering man after he had come down from the rafters.

Ay glared at the other Kage and their bodyguards for a lengthy moment before sneering and heading towards the door. "Go fuck yourselves. Kumogakure will have no part in this. Darui, Cee, let's go!"

雨 means rain.

The references are just easter eggs. I'm not going that far into the canon story, nor am I including elements from that far in any serious manner. I'm just bolstering a plot thread while tying up another, and the resulting implications therein are hilarious.

We'll get a lot more of Naruto's perspective next chapter.

Pee is stored in the balls.

Thanks for reading.